well, for all of the western panic and dick cheney freakouts, he's hardly in a terrible position. the kurds will have to act as his defacto military allies regardless of his actions due to the geographic realities of where the enemy is. ISIS has only 10k fighters spread of 40k sq miles of land. the chances of ISIS taking baghdad against the iraqi regular army +10's of thousands of shia militia members are nil, even before you count the iranian reinforcements. the ISIS forces are likely to begin to self destruct as they face fallout with their sunni allies and civilian populations who don't want to adhere to their ultra hardline stance, and when they do he can exploit that to kill as many sunni tribal enemies as he can.

well, for all of the western panic and dick cheney freakouts, he's hardly in a terrible position. the kurds will have to act as his defacto military allies regardless of his actions due to the geographic realities of where the enemy is. ISIS has only 10k fighters spread of 40k sq miles of land. the chances of ISIS taking baghdad against the iraqi regular army +10's of thousands of shia militia members are nil, even before you count the iranian reinforcements. the ISIS forces are likely to begin to self destruct as they face fallout with their sunni allies and civilian populations who don't want to adhere to their ultra hardline stance, and when they do he can exploit that to kill as many sunni tribal enemies as he can.

At the end of the day, the Shiia can defend Baghdad all they want and it'll mean nothing in the long term if ISIS carves out a huge chunk of territory and declares a new nation for the Sunni.

Infernalist:tlchwi02: Satanic_Hamster: Is this guy delusional, or just an idiot?

well, for all of the western panic and dick cheney freakouts, he's hardly in a terrible position. the kurds will have to act as his defacto military allies regardless of his actions due to the geographic realities of where the enemy is. ISIS has only 10k fighters spread of 40k sq miles of land. the chances of ISIS taking baghdad against the iraqi regular army +10's of thousands of shia militia members are nil, even before you count the iranian reinforcements. the ISIS forces are likely to begin to self destruct as they face fallout with their sunni allies and civilian populations who don't want to adhere to their ultra hardline stance, and when they do he can exploit that to kill as many sunni tribal enemies as he can.

At the end of the day, the Shiia can defend Baghdad all they want and it'll mean nothing in the long term if ISIS carves out a huge chunk of territory and declares a new nation for the Sunni.

Well, then you also have the Kurds trying to break off as well...

And a Baghdad that is more closely allied with Iran.

And what is essentially the worlds greatest oil-doused powder keg with unsettled borders and regional powers supporting sectarian militias for their own purposes...

A mess, likely hundreds of thousands of civilians dead, and really expensive gas to boot.

Deneb81:Infernalist: tlchwi02: Satanic_Hamster: Is this guy delusional, or just an idiot?

well, for all of the western panic and dick cheney freakouts, he's hardly in a terrible position. the kurds will have to act as his defacto military allies regardless of his actions due to the geographic realities of where the enemy is. ISIS has only 10k fighters spread of 40k sq miles of land. the chances of ISIS taking baghdad against the iraqi regular army +10's of thousands of shia militia members are nil, even before you count the iranian reinforcements. the ISIS forces are likely to begin to self destruct as they face fallout with their sunni allies and civilian populations who don't want to adhere to their ultra hardline stance, and when they do he can exploit that to kill as many sunni tribal enemies as he can.

At the end of the day, the Shiia can defend Baghdad all they want and it'll mean nothing in the long term if ISIS carves out a huge chunk of territory and declares a new nation for the Sunni.

Well, then you also have the Kurds trying to break off as well...

And a Baghdad that is more closely allied with Iran.

And what is essentially the worlds greatest oil-doused powder keg with unsettled borders and regional powers supporting sectarian militias for their own purposes...

A mess, likely hundreds of thousands of civilians dead, and really expensive gas to boot.

So, pretty standard fare.

it's a long overdue resettling. You can't force artificial borders on a handful of antagonistic groups and force them to live together without expecting stuff like this to happen.

At the end of the day, you'll have the remnants of Shiia Iraq allied with Iran and the remnants of Syria, a new Sunni state allied with Saudi Arabia and a new Kurdish state. We'll work with Turkey to keep things amicable there, work behind the scenes with Iran to moderate Iraq and basically give the finger to Saudi Arabia and the new Sunni state since they're the most extremist of the three states.

Infernalist:At the end of the day, the Shiia can defend Baghdad all they want and it'll mean nothing in the long term if ISIS carves out a huge chunk of territory and declares a new nation for the Sunni.

i doubt that malaki really cares that much. what is ISIS going to do up there? murder the more moderate sunni (who are malaki's enemies,) cause everyone to starve because they don't have the ability to feed them (also malaki's enemies) and fight with the kurds (malaki's enemies)?

and his other option is to give up his hard won sectarian dominance over a couple of 'what if' scenario's propogated by the same western genius's who set off the whole issue in the first place?

tlchwi02:Infernalist: At the end of the day, the Shiia can defend Baghdad all they want and it'll mean nothing in the long term if ISIS carves out a huge chunk of territory and declares a new nation for the Sunni.

i doubt that malaki really cares that much. what is ISIS going to do up there? murder the more moderate sunni (who are malaki's enemies,) cause everyone to starve because they don't have the ability to feed them (also malaki's enemies) and fight with the kurds (malaki's enemies)?

and his other option is to give up his hard won sectarian dominance over a couple of 'what if' scenario's propogated by the same western genius's who set off the whole issue in the first place?

The problem with being pro-shiia to the point of giving the others a solid middle finger is that you run out of allies in a hurry. Malaki doesn't just have to worry about the Sunni and Kurds, but also political rivals within Baghdad, like Sadr. Plus, he's going to find it hard to maintain any control at all if he continues to lose control over oil reserves and refineries. No money = No military support. The Shiia militia might swarm to defend religious points, but they'll drag Malaki out and hang him if he stops paying them.

My point is really simple: Baghdad is mostly irrelevant. Its loss will signal a complete loss of Iraq, but Iraq can still be lost long before Baghdad falls.

Infernalist:The problem with being pro-shiia to the point of giving the others a solid middle finger is that you run out of allies in a hurry. Malaki doesn't just have to worry about the Sunni and Kurds, but also political rivals within Baghdad, like Sadr. Plus, he's going to find it hard to maintain any control at all if he continues to lose control over oil reserves and refineries. No money = No military support. The Shiia militia might swarm to defend religious points, but they'll drag Malaki out and hang him if he stops paying them.

As it stands, malaki controls all of the oil in the southern fields and almost all of the pipelines out of the country (excluding the recent kurdish/turkish pipeline which is still of very limited capacity.) Fairly sure that he isn't hurting for money to pay the troops and militias. considering that ISIS currently controls the areas with very little oil, but most importantly 0 shipping ability. You can have all the oil in the world but if you have to drive it in pickups trucks one barrel at a time through a war zone and try and sell it piecemeal it wont do you much good

even the refinery that ISIS seized (which it doesn't sound like they control anymore) was predominantly for domestic use. the oil that they use for trade purposes is shipped as crude

Infernalist:Deneb81: Infernalist: tlchwi02: Satanic_Hamster: Is this guy delusional, or just an idiot?

well, for all of the western panic and dick cheney freakouts, he's hardly in a terrible position. the kurds will have to act as his defacto military allies regardless of his actions due to the geographic realities of where the enemy is. ISIS has only 10k fighters spread of 40k sq miles of land. the chances of ISIS taking baghdad against the iraqi regular army +10's of thousands of shia militia members are nil, even before you count the iranian reinforcements. the ISIS forces are likely to begin to self destruct as they face fallout with their sunni allies and civilian populations who don't want to adhere to their ultra hardline stance, and when they do he can exploit that to kill as many sunni tribal enemies as he can.

At the end of the day, the Shiia can defend Baghdad all they want and it'll mean nothing in the long term if ISIS carves out a huge chunk of territory and declares a new nation for the Sunni.

Well, then you also have the Kurds trying to break off as well...

And a Baghdad that is more closely allied with Iran.

And what is essentially the worlds greatest oil-doused powder keg with unsettled borders and regional powers supporting sectarian militias for their own purposes...

A mess, likely hundreds of thousands of civilians dead, and really expensive gas to boot.

So, pretty standard fare.

it's a long overdue resettling. You can't force artificial borders on a handful of antagonistic groups and force them to live together without expecting stuff like this to happen.

At the end of the day, you'll have the remnants of Shiia Iraq allied with Iran and the remnants of Syria, a new Sunni state allied with Saudi Arabia and a new Kurdish state. We'll work with Turkey to keep things amicable there, work behind the scenes with Iran to moderate Iraq and basically give the finger to Saudi Arabia and the new Sunni state since they're the most extremist of the three states.

See also: Yugoslavia and Sudan.

Nigeria is at risk of splitting as well. It split before in the late 1960s, until the UK and USSR (yes, really!) forced it back together.

Infernalist:it's a long overdue resettling. You can't force artificial borders on a handful of antagonistic groups and force them to live together without expecting stuff like this to happen.

It's tempting to think that if we just let them all slug it out and reform along more natural cultural boundaries that things would be a lot more stable in the long run. I suspect it wouldn't accomplish much.

Fish in a Barrel:Infernalist: it's a long overdue resettling. You can't force artificial borders on a handful of antagonistic groups and force them to live together without expecting stuff like this to happen.

It's tempting to think that if we just let them all slug it out and reform along more natural cultural boundaries that things would be a lot more stable in the long run. I suspect it wouldn't accomplish much.

There will be plenty of ethnic and sectarian cleansing, before this settles down. Example: If I were the Kurds, I would tell all the Sunni Arabs, that Saddam moved into Kurdistan, to go be Arab somewhere else. It might be considered bad behavior by the rest of the world, but, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.